Farming Screen
The farming screen ( )lets you manage/slaughter your herds of cows/horses/sheep/pigs, clear land for farmland/pastures, as well as changing the mix of crops on your fields. It also gives information about expected harvests, and what your food stockpile is. Other information, as well as hints can be found on the Farming page. Additionally, you can find more information on Hunting. Center Stone This stone details the various blessings which can affect your agricultural pursuits. Active blessings appear with a blue outline. Herds The left side of the screen details just how many cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs you have. This number will go up and down depending on sacrifices, slaughtering, disease, births, captures, etc. Cattle: Orlanthi primarily measure wealth by how many cows they have. Herds are under 500 considered disastrous (in fact, you may trigger an event to this effect). Herds of 600-700 are also considered too small. 700-800 is pretty good, while 900+ is excellent. Also, roughly 1/3 of the number of your cattle present are oxen that may be used in planting: if you have 900 cattle, roughly 300 can be used for planting. This percentage can certainly vary, though. Sheep: Not as important as cattle, but you will notice if their population drops. If your sheep herd starts dropping too rapidly, you may have to disband some of your shrines/temples. Sheep also help in trade since their wool is made into trade goods. Pigs: Not too important, but pigs are definitely more useful if you need a quick source of meat. Horses: More important for your military endeavors, horses can be slaughtered in a pinch if you are facing starvation. Slaughter Directly below the Herds listing this is the Slaughter screen. From this screen you can designate just how many animals you wish to slaughter. Moving the sliders to the right will increase the amount killed. Each time a slider is moved, the Food Value entry will change as well. Any animals picked will be made into food if you press the Slaughter button (it will be playable as soon as you pick an animal above 0). Killing your animals can be a short term fix, but it takes a long time for them to breed their levels back to where they need. If you do decide to slaughter animals, each animal type provides the following number of food units: 5 sheep = 3 pigs = 1 cow = 1 horse = 1 Food Unit Land To the left of the center stone is the land entry. It indicates how many units are Cropland (used for planting crops), Pasture (food for your herds), and Wildlands (land for your pigs, and hunters). Each slider may be moved, raising or lowering the effected units of land. Three inter-linked sliders allow you to change the amount of land your clan has between wildlands, pasture, and cropland. Wildlands: Forest provide hunting grounds for hunters, and foraging space for pigs. To increase pasture/farmland, you must decrease wildland. The time needed to clear the wildland will reduce the amount of farmers available for that growing year. Obviously, a decrease in wildlands means less yield for your hunters, and fewer pigs you can raise. Pastures: Meadows and grass plains your sheep, cattle, and horses feed on. Certain events/situations may reduce the amount of pasture land available, so you may have to clear some more. It is necessary to have enough lands to feed your herds, but if you have excess pasture land, it will slowly turn back to wildlands. Cropland: The main source of your clan’s food, the amount that can be farmed is determined by the number of healthy farmers you have and how many aren’t busy herding. There is also a danger of having too much cropland. If your farmers are trying to cover too much land, they will be less productive, easier to anger, and more prone to injury/sickness from being overworked. The amount of oxen you need for farming must be double the amount of land set aside for cropland: if you are planting 100 units of land, you need 200 oxen to properly harvest it. There is one side benefit to increasing pasture and cropland: Anyone coming on a raid is much more likely to be discovered. Crops Planted This is the percentage of your crops devoted to Wheat, Barley, and Rye. You will usually leave thse sliders alone. The crop sliders allow you to change the proportions of the three main crops. However, your farming magic works best when there is a balance of grains. The game’s starting proportion is 35% Wheat, 50% Barley, and 15% Rye. You probably won’t change this too much, but (as an example) if your god-talkers at Sacred Time predict your wheat crop is going to fail, then you will want to increase Barley and Rye. If you change the percentage for this reason, be sure to change the percentage back after Earth season. Also, you can only adjust crops during Sea, Dark, and Storm. Barley: A fine food provider, and important to make beer. Too much barley cuts your clan’s productivity (representing your clan getting too drunk), while too little hurts your clan’s mood and standard of living. Rye: The most reliable grain you grow. It never suffers bad harvests or blights, but people don’t like it as much wheat, nor is its yield as high. Wheat: Riskier to plan than rye, but it has a greater yield, and more demand during trading. Expected Food This is the expected amount of food you should get, barring any other occurrence such as disasters, events, raids, etc. On the right side of the screen is a small section which shows you the expected harvest from your hunting, crops, and herd. This number will vary depending on magic allocated during Sacred Time, relations with the gods, weather, and plain old luck. Also, weaponthanes and nobles will eat more, thralls eat less, and children eat less than an adult. Food Stockpile Simply the amount of food you currently have in storage. This number will fluctuate between seasons as people eat, crops are harvest, vermin/spoilage takes its toll, etc. Category:Interface